How much of your car do you need to hand over in a write off claim?

DullGreyGuy

B0bbyEwing said:

DullGreyGuy said:

B0bbyEwing said:

cw8825 said:

B0bbyEwing said:

With your opening - it's that you're supposed to tell them. Not that you have to. 

I won't die if I don't tell them. I won't go to jail. If I scrap it then nobody knows. If I sell as spares or repair then nobody knows. 

There's a lot of supposeds to in the world. Keeping it motoring we're supposed to not go beyond the speed limit but I'd argue that everyone reading this breaks it at some point. It's just whether you get caught or not. 

if your asking for people to advise you to commit fraud - then nobody will, people can give advice and then its your choice what to do.

yes you are supposed to notify insurers of all incidents but not everybody does

Now if there was an incident no other cars involved, no damage to any other property or people, if you didnt report it, how would the insurers find out?

How is "how much of your car do you need to hand over in a write off claim" asking people to advise me to commit fraud?

If YOU want to delve deeper & know the ins and outs then ok but I was simply asking if I can take bits off the car to then sell on without it impacting on the claim. The answer to this question would be yes/no and I'd proceed from there. 
I could of course phone the insurance & ask them as a general enquiry but they may or may not then mark the policy, so at this point in time it's better to ask others who may be more in the know than I.

Because if someone inspects your car and says it's worth £5,000 and you accept that then they own the whole car. To give them anything but the whole car would be fraud. 

I mean, I am sure you wouldnt be happy going to look at a new car, taking it for a test drive, agreeing a price and for them to deliver the car to you. Then when the car turns up they've taken off the wheels and taken out the seats would you?

In practice most arent going to care about minor things but the suggestion of taking alloys or spare wheels are not minor. If you ask and they say it's ok, or you tell them before they value it that these things will be removed then it's fine. To get it valued with its alloys and then remove them before surrendering the vehicle hoping you won't be caught is fraud. 

You're talking about the scenario where someone looks over the car, values it & THEN I start altering it.

I was talking about taking some bits off before contacting the insurance. 

Different scenarios.

As said, I was also just generally asking so that I can make a decision based on the response. As it turns out, I'll not be doing that.

I also found through talking to others 'IRL' that through lack of experience in this area I just had the wrong idea about how it worked anyway. I assumed they'd value the car as it stands, which is basically scrap value now. I was told that it doesn't work like that & instead they'd value it as it would be on the market in working order. I'm told they'd take the car that it is, trim level, approx mileage etc & then see what it approximately sells for (what sites or database they use I don't know). 
I bought my car in 2017/2018 for about £1700. Looking at what they were selling for pre-accident then I could get in the region of £1,500-£2,000 (depending on how greedy the seller seemed to be). This is crazy to me since it's now 7-8yrs older & has obviously done a lot more miles but I guess that's the way it is. Anyway, I'm told, correctly or incorrectly, that if that's what they're selling at today then that's roughly what the insurance would pay me for it.

Which if so then I'd be going through the insurance. Saves a lot of hassle. I've until the end of the month (tax refund) or until I hit the light on the fuel, whichever comes first. 

I also covered the scenario where you tell them you intend to take off parts before asking them to value it.

Everyone who deals with cars, be that traders, insurers or finance companies all use "book price" from companies like Glass, CAP, Parkers etc. They are no longer physically books any more but online tools where you enter the reg, details like mileage and service history and it tells you the value of the vehicle. 

There wouldnt be much point to having first party insurance if they only gave you the scrap value for it, you'd be able to get that yourself and without paying an excess. You insure it at market value and settlement is the lesser of the cost of repairing it or the pre-accident market value (normally with a weighting towards total loss as repair estimates go up when the car is stripped and more damage is found. 

B0bbyEwing

They actually take service history in to account? 

Are you supposed to leave all the paperwork in the car when they take the car or something? 

Because I do general filters myself but keep Thr paperwork & note the milage & date. When we had the car before this written off as someone went in to the back of us they didn't ask anything about service history. 

ontheroad1970

It's something you can go back to them with if they value the car for less than you hope - "I have invoices from X garage for a full service" for example - changing the oil yourself will be less effective.

DullGreyGuy

B0bbyEwing said:

They actually take service history in to account? 

Are you supposed to leave all the paperwork in the car when they take the car or something? 

Because I do general filters myself but keep Thr paperwork & note the milage & date. When we had the car before this written off as someone went in to the back of us they didn't ask anything about service history. 

Depends on the age of the vehicle... old cars it makes very little difference, if the car is only a couple of years old then it makes more difference and also if the main dealer did it or a backstreet garage.

In my day we'd ask for it to be posted to us along with the V5c etc but ultimately your insurers should be advising you on what to do etc.